Grilles Gone Wild: The Cars of Tulum, Mexico

We’re betting you’d like to see a slideshow on the swimsuits of Tulum. Once an unspoiled string of beaches on the Caribbean inhabited by pelicans, backpackers, and the small, largely Mayan local population, this trendy sunspot in southeastern Mexico is now a hopping getaway favored by all your better fashionistas. Crawling with beautiful people clad in scanty bathing costumes, it’s so tightly packed today with touristic development (albeit to a three-story height limit) that one needs to step lively, lest they start building a cabana in the very spot where he stands. I know because I visited here recently, trunks and all, for some dear friends’ wedding.

But, alas, swimsuits won’t be on display today. This being a car column, we bring you instead a quick look at some of the amazingly oddball machinery buzzing around the roads of Tulum. Because even though it’s a shorter flight here from New York than it is to Denver, the automotive stock in Mexico is light years away from what we see back home. The photos here aren’t of the highest quality, you will agree, (indeed some were so bad, we had to substitute file photos) but when you’re drinking reposado tequila to avoid drinking the water, your best shot isn’t always your best shot.

OK, this is one you can get back home, but Volkswagen de México were kind enough to lend it to GQ, meeting us at the Cancn airport, and with its built in sat-nav and mondo air conditioning, we were glad they did. Jettas have grown larger over the years as VW cast about to hit the sweet spot in American car buying. While some (ok, me) have accused them of dumbing down the Jetta to keep cost-competitive with Japanese and Korean offerings, this Mexican-built example (just the sort we get back home) didn’t seem dumb at all. A larger car than many down here—evidenced by all the small Volkswagens on the road we’d never even heard of—it was not too large, striking us as a fine, well-assembled, and entirely pleasant machine. No wonder American sales are up. But just in case you preferred the old Jetta, VW still sells a version of the 1999 edition here—it’s called the Clasico.

Volkswagen, it is true, has turned more pesos into Deutsche Marks than anyone, sending them home to the Fatherland by the steamship-load, ever since they started manufacturing in Puebla in the mid-’60s. While the old Beetle was pretty much the national car of Mexico for decades, in recent years a plethora of other models—some we see in the USA, like the Jetta and Golf, but also many others very strange to American eyes—have picked up the slack. Still, the old Beetles soldier on, most in original, battered-relic condition. Weird, how the People’s Car of the 1930s is alive and well in 21st-century Mexico. But not as weird as some stuff we’d eventually see.

Here in Mexico, you can still buy the old Type 2 VW bus. VW buffs will know that this is one hoary old beast—the Type 1 was the original Beetle of 1939, the Type 2 the proto-minivan VW that was devised in the late ’40s as a potentially profitable variation on the Beetle’s floorpan and humble mechanicals. And boy was it. They stopped building buses here in 1996, but the first choice of hippies needing to transport gaggles of stoned friends is still being churned out by VW in one of its Brazilian factories, the strange protuberance seen here on its bluff nose being a radiator, occasioned by a late-in-life switch to water-cooled engines.

A low-cost Brazilian Volkswagen previously sold in Mexico as the Pointer, it’s kind of like a smaller Golf. Of course, in Germany, they already sell one of those called the Polo, to which the Gol is distantly related. So we’re guessing a Gol has all the size of the Polo, but less of its cost—and maybe not all of its safety and engineering cleverness. Or maybe it’s just politic to let the Brazilian VW factory sell into Mexico. See also: the VW CrossFox, a small SUV, also made in Brazil and based on the Fox, a small VW not seen in the US since 1993.

Frequent French car sightings remind us that the roads of Mexico are not the Japanese/German/Korean/American superhighways we know back home. Cars made by Peugeot and Renault, two venerable Gallic firms that both turned tail and split from the U.S. late in the last century, are plentiful indeed in Mexico. Ironically, the brands, best known in North America for breaking down unexpectedly, are seen as paragons of ruggedness in many far-flung lands, including Africa, though not so much confections like the CC, which is a dainty convertible with a folding hardtop (like the VW Eos, only smaller). The perfect rental car for two vacationers for whom nothing less than a full day of tanning will do.

When it isn’t busy churning out Fiat 500s (like GQ’s own long-term tester) here for the American market—taking advantage of NAFTA rules that make building cars for the U.S. with cheap Mexican labor advantageous—the Italian firm builds and sells some of its other European hardware, including the Panda, a practical, non-retro economy hatch, and the wacky Strada pickup, as well as the Ducato large van, which we may soon see in the U.S. replacing the Mercedes-derived Sprinters Dodge dealers used to sell.

To remind us that we Americans are deprived when it comes to all the world’s vans, and yet also that this is not always a bad thing, comes this large yet slightly vulnerable-feeling Toyota product that has friends all over the world. To keep it short and maneuverable, the engine is right between the driver and the front passenger, so what breaks when you accidentally nerf the car in front of you with your Hiace or similarly configured Nissan Urvan is, well, you.

Ford is planning to sell this world van in America by next year, on account of its profitable Econoline being an ancient, thirsty beast. The Transit’s more modern unit body construction means lighter weight, better mileage, and better handling, at no penalty in load-carrying ability. The fact that we’re made to wait back home for good stuff like the Transit is not only your airport shuttle driver’s problem; it’s proof that in some areas of global vehicle marketing, we Americans truly are treated like third worlders. With the rise of the developing world’s economic importance, sometimes it’s going to be our turn to be second-class motorists. We might as well get used to it.

The Spanish SEAT brand is another one of the many marques purchased in the world-domination march begun by Volkswagen in the ’90s. SEAT’s Spanish heritage has long been myth—Italian Fiat supplied the technology and held an interest before VW bought in—but the C&#xF3;rdoba’s quality VW underpinnings, shared with the Golf and the Jetta, makes for a car that is the opposite of shame-worthy, an excellent machine that can be a high-mileage diesel champ, and a preferred local taxicab. The Mexicans have clearly made their peace with imperialist Europe, automotively speaking, so something Spanish-inflected certainly makes sense as a way to round out VW’s already wide array of offerings.

Just in case you think the French are so weird that they aren’t keeping up with the rest of the world’s headlong descent into crossover hell, check out the Koleos, a small crossover SUV that’s kind of handsome and practical, and presumably can claim to get good gas mileage while hauling the beautiful people of Tulum’s hotel strip from white-sand beach to hipster cocktail lounge and back again. And, evidencing the global musical chairs that is today’s car industry, it’s actually made in Korea.

Some of the saddest monstrosities ever to wear the name, these seventh-generation Cougars—circa 1989-1997—must have been on special sale in Mexico, because we saw half a dozen on the streets in four days, which is more than we’d see back home in a month of Sundays. As driving propositions, they were better than most of their predecessors, but their big bones, bad looks, and surprisingly claustrophobic cabins make them unlikely—or perhaps deeply ironic?—choices for this resort’s svelte, drug-addled, and presumably paranoia-prone ex-pat community.

Montezuma hadn’t exacted the full measure of his revenge, but he was getting pretty darned snippy when I had to stop and see this one. Land Rover’s Defender line, not sold in the States since 1996, is the essential, central icon of the Land Rover brand and still appeals to the well-to-do, especially in its ever-so-rare four-door form, so wherever they can get them, the well-heeled do. And who can blame them?

For reasons unknown, Hyundai doesn’t market its own cars in Mexico, but instead lets Dodge slap its nameplate on them through some sort of reciprocal marketing agreement. That Dodge Attitude look familiar? It’s a Hyundai Accent in drag. And the Dodge Atos, which looks like nothing you’ve ever seen in Kansas, is a Hyundai Atos, a city car not sold in America, where we think that just because one lives in a crowded city doesn’t mean he needs to drive a small car.

You’d recognize the Chevy Silverado pickups and Tahoe and Suburban SUVs anywhere. They’re just like the friendly workhorses we get back home, except they look especially menacing when they’re idling by the side of the road, filled with Federales bearing automatic machine guns at the innumerable checkpoints we pass through on the road to Tulum. The Dodge Charger, another popular police vehicle that instills the fear of god on the American interstate, also manages to look even meaner south of the border.

The Swift is actually a fine hatchback that was supposed to come to the floors of U.S. dealers in 2010 and then 2011, but didn’t. One of the better-kept secrets in the U.S. industry, Suzukis (including the Kizashi sedan that has impressed road testers, but not buyers) are actually excellent cars from a small company less able than most to ride out currency fluctuations and market downturns. A partial hook-up with VW has reportedly proved disastrous—fiercely independent Suzuki had no idea what it was in for—so now the Japanese firm has to pick its shots carefully. Until it finds a way to get us the Swift back home, you’ll have to come somewhere like Tulum to experience its charms.

Nissan is one of Mexico’s biggest manufacturers along with Volkswagen, and has recently announced plans to build a third mega-plant here at the cost of $2 billion. What we know as the Sentra is the most ubiquitous of Tulum’s taxicabs, but the streets are also filled with Nissans we’ve never seen before, and some we’ve seen elsewhere with a different name. For instance, in Mexico, Sentras are known as Tsurus. Others look vaguely familiar, some look downright weird, and still others remind trained eyes of Renaults. No wonder there—the two companies are joined at the corporate hip and share technology, pieces, and designs frequently, such as the last-generation Mexican-built Nissan Versa, which shared much with Renault’s Megane. Here in Mexico, something called the Nissan Platina is a variation on Renault’s Clio sedan.

This perfectly handsome crossover from the Blue Oval serves to underscore that raising the gas mileage of the American fleet isn’t an impossible dream, it’s being done by our biggest manufacturers elsewhere. However, some of the cars we come across wouldn’t stand a chance against our exhaust sniffers and side impact tests raising the question: Why are carmakers happy to sell something less than the best in so many places? If you guessed money/cost/profit, you’re getting warm. Time to hit the beach.

The Roads of Tulum

It helps one’s understanding of the humble vehicles that seem to work here so well to know that Tulum’s main drag, where all the beach hotels and cabanas are located, is a fairly narrow road, jammed with cyclists, scooters, and all manner of over-empowered tourists not looking where they’re going or hearing what’s coming at them because they’re a) wasted and oblivious, b) pontificating to their dearest friends while listening to rare trance grooves with their earbuds in, c) wasted and convicted oftheir own immortality, or d) all of the above. So, driving slowly is the wise choice and frequent speed bumps—Mexico seems to rely heavily on "sleeping policemen"—make caution and low speeds the only choice. The 100-kilometer drive between Tulum and the airport at Cancun, where most visitors will fly in, is made relatively painless by a new modern road that would appear to favor a vehicle with a turn of speed. But frequent police roadblocks—some of which combine sleeping policemen with heavily armed awake ones—will terrify you into slowing down, while many of the sights along this once-unspoiled stretch of land, with its malls and gated luxury communities, will remind you of Paramus, New Jersey. It’s hard to say which is scarier.

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